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Singles and Asexuals: Their Intersextion January 23, 2013

An ‘asexual person’ refers to someone who does not experience sexual attraction.

To many people, this sounds startling, or freakish. They may say it’s impossible; the asexual person must have something wrong with them.

A ‘non-seeking single’ refers to someone who doesn’t particularly care if he or she finds The One or gets married. 

To many people, this sounds startling, or freakish. They may say it’s impossible; the single person must have something wrong with them.

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Whoaaaaaa there, some of our Copious Readers might say. Why are you comparing asexuals to singles? You’re just perpetuating the stereotype that non-coupled singles don’t get any sex! And that’s not true! We get a LOT of sex! Sometimes!

No, this is not about that. This is about rhetoric. Asexuals and singles of many stripes are alike–in that they suffer from (or are irritated by) the same kinds of prejudiced rhetoric. I recently watched the documentary (A)Sexual. Its primary hero is David Jay, the founder of  AVEN, the Asexuality and Visibility Education Network. The film also follows asexual advocate Swank Ivy. I stared with fascination as she described her Top Ten List of Things People Say To an Asexual.

If Onely had compiled a Top Ten list (why didn’t we ever think to do that?) it would be pretty much identical to Swank Ivy‘s. (Although her online list varies slightly from the verbal list she gives in the movie, their essences are the same.) Note that she writes from the point of view of a hetero woman, but the list could easily be tweaked to fit men: (more…)